Ozon, Russia’s leading multi-category e-commerce company, aims to go public later this year or in early 2021, the company announced Friday, and has started the registration procedure for an initial public offering (IPO) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company did not provide any details on the potential placement but, according to …
Russian digital majors Ozon and ivi.ru plot US IPOs Read More
X5 Retail Group, a leading Russian food retailer, is deploying a robotic telephone platform based on advanced speech technologies. Used to handle incoming calls and make outgoing calls without human intervention, the group’s new voice assistants simulate dialogue with customers and help resolve their issues. “After the caller formulates a question, the bot uses complex machine learning algorithms and accumulated data to identify the …
Russian retail giant X5 uses advanced speech technologies to automate call centers Read More
Commuters in Moscow will soon be able to take a ride on the metro with just a turn of their heads, as the Russian capital embraces next-generation facial payment technology. At least one turnstile at each metro station will be equipped with the contactless facial recognition technology as soon as next spring, Moscow authorities say. The system, which …
Moscow Metro to introduce facial payment technology Read More
The Skolkovo Foundation and VR_Bank have evaluated the digitalization level of the top 50 Russian banks in the first half of 2020. Tinkoff Bank – which has just agreed an acquisition deal with Yandex – became the leader and moved up one place compared to 2019. It is followed by state-controlled bank VTB, which moved …
Tinkoff, VTB and Sberbank top Russian bank digitalization ranking Read More
Several ministries of the Russian Federation, including The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Economic Development, as well as the Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transport (Rosmorrechflot) supported the draft government decree on conducting an experiment on the operation of self-driving vessels. According to the …
Russia to launch self-driving tram and vessel experiments Read More
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, has teamed up with its Emirati peer Mubadala to invest “more than 1 billion rubles” (approximately $13 million at the current exchange rate) in Russian face recognition startup NtechLab. Touting itself as “the global leader in computer vision systems based on artificial intelligence and neural networks,” NtechLab provides solutions …
A series of news in the past few days came to underline the intensifying relationship between Russia and Gulf countries in the fields of technologies and investment. Mubadala eyes Russian technologies Thus last week Sberbank, the state-controlled Russian financial and tech giant (now known as Sber), announced a “strategic agreement” with Mubadala Investment Company (Mubadala), an Abu Dhabi-based sovereign …
Russia and Gulf countries intensify cooperation in high tech Read More
As the global digital music market pursues solid growth, last week saw three deals involving companies from Russia or with Russian founders. Sberbank acquires Zvooq Just a day before touting its transformation into a tech “universe,” Sber announced the acquisition of Zvooq, one of the most established Russian music platforms. No details about the transaction were disclosed. Founded in 2010 by UK …
From Moscow to Berlin, digital music startups attract top investors Read More
It was a big week for the Russian tech market. The NASDAQ-listed Internet giant Yandex took a big leap into the financial sector with the announcement of plans to purchase digital bank Tinkoff for $5.5 billion. Days later, the country’s largest bank, state-controlled Sberbank, launched a major rebranding in which CEO German Gref gave a Steve …
Russia’s Internet and telecom regulator Roskomnadzor has added Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, to the list of blacklisted websites in the country. The exchange was blacklisted on June 2, 2020, but Binance became aware of this only on September 24th, after receiving communication from Roskomnadzor. Binance said on its Russian Telegram channel it was …
According to an announcement by Mail.ru Group on the London Stock Exchange, the Internet company plans to raise $600 million: $200 million in global depositary receipts (GDRs) to raise capital and $400 million in convertible bonds. Mail.ru Group will use this money to develop and support the business and finance future transactions, especially in areas that have …
Mail.ru Group plans to raise $600 million on London Stock Exchange Read More
Sberbank, Russia’s state-controlled financial behemoth, is showcasing what it calls the biggest transformation in its history, as it unveils a suite of new technology products in an aggressive drive to get deeper into the tech sector. In a flashy presentation Thursday morning — echoing Apple’s famous annual product launches which attract millions of viewers and …
Sberbank unveils sweeping transformation into tech company Read More
